Tag archives for David Braun
Posted by We’ve heard of coral dying, but did anyone imagine that dead humans could contribute to keeping reefs alive?
This is the second post in my account of a ten-day exploration of the Galapagos, on board the National Geographic Endeavour. In the first post, I described our arrival on the island of San Cristobal and our first visit to a Galapagos beach. We awoke on the first full day of our expedition to…
Bewitched, enchanted, beguiling. Those are just some of the terms explorers across five centuries have used to describe the Galapagos, an unmatched archipelago of islands drifting in the vastness of the open ocean, in the middle of nowhere.
In an effort to engage children in both fitness and recycling, National Geographic Kids magazine is attempting to break two Guinness World Records titles today and tomorrow. “Through the magazine’s Run for the Planet program, in coordination with the prestigious Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) Healthy Kids Fun Run, people all over the world will attempt…
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Famous for infectious dance tunes and memorable meaty fashion choices, superstar Lady Gaga has another claim to fame: botany. Nineteen species of fern native to Central and South America, Mexico, Arizona, and Texas are being named in her honor by the Duke University research team who found them. Their findings will be published in the…
Just in time for Halloween, our new book, Tales of the Weird: Unbelievable True Stories, was released this week.
A new species of freshwater fish found in Mexico has several interesting – and perhaps cringe-inducing – characteristics, including four hooks on the male genitalia, North Carolina State University said this week.
Four white rhinos were poached for their horns in a privately owned nature reserve in South Africa this week, taking the total number of rhinos killed illegally in the country this year to around 400. The total number of rhinos poached in South Africa in all of 2011 was 448, compared with 333 in 2010.
The panda cub born a week ago at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., was found dead early today.
As bird populations plummet worldwide, will Earth become the Planet of the Spiders? Research on Guam, a 30-mile-long U.S. island in the Pacific, found that arachnid populations increased as much as 40-fold in the wake of insect-eating birds being eaten into oblivion by invasive brown treesnakes.
A monkey known as the lesula to local people in a remote part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been found to be a species new to science, researchers reported this week in the journal PLOS ONE. The species has been discovered just as it is being threatened with being hunted and eaten into extinction.
Apart from being four-legged animals, what do a cheetah and a pack mule have in common? They’ve both inspired what may be the next generation of war machines.
Shortness of breath, excessive salivation, tremors, and an intensely painful erection are all indications of being bitten by a highly venomous arachnid commonly known as the banana spider. So toxic is Phoneutria nigriventer, a member of the Ctenidae family of wandering spiders, that its bite has been known to kill people. The spider is a…
One more reason to be nervous about climate change: Tick species are on the march. The blood-sucking, disease-spreading parasites are expanding into new territories as wildlife populations, forest habitats and weather patterns change across North America, biologists have found. “This year’s mild winter and early spring were a bonanza for tick populations in the eastern…
The hen with the largest comb gets a bigger dose of sperm, and thus more chicks, according to research published this week. Roosters have figured out what poultry breeders know — combs are a reliable indicator of a hen’s ability to produce more eggs.
Eighteen smooth green snakes bred in captivity were released into the northern Illinois prairie a few dozen miles from Chicago today.
A 24-hour BioBlitz by some 150 scientists and 2,000 students this weekend identified 489 species alive and well in Rocky Mountain National Park. Or did a last-minute flyover by a bald eagle make the final count 490? Presenting the tally confirmed by scientists this afternoon, BioBlitz coordinators said there were 89 species of birds, 12…
Botanist Scott Smith specializes in ferns, orchids and cactus, but today at the Rocky Mountain National Park BioBlitz he was looking for ferns. At something like 9,500 feet above sea level, in the park’s subalpine zone, he showed visitors how to find two species of an ancient plant invisible to all but expert eyes. Story, photos and video.
Cay Ogden, retired National Park Service wildlife biologist, discusses the bats that live in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, and why we should do all we can to help bats co-exist with us in urban areas. Ogden’s role in the BioBlitz was to organize two teams of scientists to confirm the seven species of bats…
Verizon Wireless partnered with the National Park Service and the National Geographic Society to produce the 2012 BioBlitz in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park this weekend. For the largest wireless network provider in the U.S. it is an opportunity to connect thousands of people with nature in real time. For John Johnson, Verizon Wireless’ executive director…
David Munson, Director of Education, Project Noah, is back at the BioBlitz. A lot has happened with Project Noah since the Saguaro National Park BioBlitz, he tells us in this video report. “We’ve got almost 150,000 users around the world … updating awesome wildlife photos … making huge strides in citizen science, connecting a lot…
Rich Bray has volunteered 17,500 hours to the Rocky Mountain Butterfly Project. His work has won him an award from the National Park Service. Rich was at the Rocky Mountain National Park BioBlitz today with some of the 141 butterflies the project has collected. Here he talks about the butterflies and his passion for studying…
Bill Windsor of the Colorado Mycological Society was out gathering fungi for today’s Rocky Mountain National Park BioBlitz. Find out what mushrooms you can eat and — what you might want to avoid.
It is without doubt one of the strangest things I have ever seen in my life, says zoologist Lucy Cooke. She’s describing her first sighting of the bizarre four-headed penis of the echidna, a spiny, termite-eating, egg-laying mammal found in Australia.
The giant invasive snakes that are thought to be breeding and munching their way through the native animals in Florida’s Everglades may have found their nemesis in the form of one of America’s most beloved pets, the Labrador retriever. “The scenario sounds like a low-budget movie from the 1970s: Humongous snakes are on the loose,…
